Part III.—Letters Written during the Exile of Hus
(September 1412—August 1414)
Hus, as we have seen, had left Prague in the early autumn of 1412, but soon returned. On his final retirement in the December, Wenzel, who had insisted on the step, fulfilled his part of the unwritten compact by giving orders for a Synod to meet on February 2 at Böhmish Brod, a small town belonging to the Archbishop. In reality the Synod assembled at Prague on February 6, at the very time at which in Rome the works of Wyclif were being publicly burnt in the great square of St. Peter’s, on the orders of John’s Lateran Council (February 10, 1413). Before this Synod all parties laid their memorials—the theological faculty, the artists, and the Reformers. The opponents of Hus, chief among whom was “the Iron Bishop,” John Bucka of Leitomischl, insisted that the papal decisions and the excommunication of Hus must be upheld, ‘that a vice-chancellor be appointed to search out and punish the errors of masters and scholars,’ and that ‘the Czech writings of Hus—the stalks of these accursed tares and schism—be placed under an anathema.’ Obedience, they claimed, was the first duty of all, nor was it their business to consider whether the excommunication of Hus was just or unjust. Hus on his part—he was not there in person—both in his appeal to the Synod (infra, p. 115) as well as in his ‘conditions of peace,’ demanded the upholding of the decision of Zbinek of July 6, 1411. He harped much on the injury done to the realm by the accusations of heresy. Let the heretic be named, if known. On the personal charge he was prepared to defend himself under penalties against all opponents, but demanded in return that his calumniators, if they failed to substantiate their charges, should not escape scot free. Hus’s most important condition, one that shows also the influence of Wyclif, is his claim that the Civil Courts must be supreme ‘in all approbations, condemnations, and other acts concerning Mother
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